


even atlas cannot stand forever

by piecesofgold



Category: Anastasia - Flaherty/Ahrens/McNally
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, F/M, lower your expectations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:29:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26395684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piecesofgold/pseuds/piecesofgold
Summary: and the wheel will begin turning.
Relationships: Dimitri | Dmitry/Anya | Anastasia Romanov (Anastasia 1997 & Broadway)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 48





	even atlas cannot stand forever

**Author's Note:**

> this has been in my docs since MAY ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> thank my useless knowledge of the romanov dynasty and the Hermitage museum's [virtual tour](https://hermitagemuseum.org/wps/portal/hermitage/panorama/virtual_visit/panoramas-m-1/?lng=en) for this.

Politics and survival are two very different things. They learn that the hard way.

They were fools to believe it ever could have worked; a Grand Duchess and the son of an anarchist is akin to a spark on gasoline.

“You just want to save the world, don’t you?” She smiled against his bare shoulder one night, before her world ended and his stalled forever.

Snorting, his fingers danced along her spine. “By myself? Not likely.”

She hummed. “I believe you could.”

“If you asked me too.”

Her hand tightened on his arm, hating it when he reminds her of her station. "Go and save the world if you want,” she whispered. “But know the world doesn't get to keep you." She tilted her head to kiss him. "You're mine."

It’s not enough.

Their worlds turn on its axis all at once. Trapped in Tsarskoe Selo, he grips her hand and promises to get her out.

Shaking, she kisses his knuckles. “You’ll die,” she says, helpless.

His hands move to cup her face, thumb wiping her tears. “Then I’ll find you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“In another life.” There is a conviction in his voice that she’s never heard before. “If there is any justice in this world, any Gods, they will guide me to you.”

She grips his wrist hard enough to leave indents, the moment between them sacred. “I’ll find you,” she swears. “In all of them.”

In the life they are supposed to get it right, Dimitri fails to save her, and Anastasia is murdered by a firing squad. He will die before he ever reaches France, the Romanov Dynasty will fall, and the wheel will begin turning.

( _this is wrong,_ Eternity whispers.

Fate does not respond.)

* * *

Perhaps it’s a coincidence, but Fate is rarely so lazy.

Most times they never remember, but every other decade, one of them begins to. Something calls them to the epicentre, to the place that seems to linger most in their minds.

Russia, and names they have not had in over one hundred years. She is not a Grand Duchess, and he is not a kitchen boy or an anarchist's son.

His mother shoos him out the door with a kiss on his cheek and a napkin full of syrniki because he’s running late for work _again_. Dmitry is beginning to suspect she wakes him late deliberately because she knows how soon he’ll be leaving for Paris.

Saint Petersburg’s Hermitage museum rests along the Palace Embankment overlooking the Neva, a stark reminder of the old Russia that Catherine the Great began the preservation of. The first time Dmitry saw the Winter Palace, it felt as though someone had punched him in the gut.

There’s something, in the back of his mind, that he’s never quite been able to reach. And he says things, blurts them out without thinking in correction of his boss and supervisors when they’re looking over the exhibits.

Lily had narrowed her eyes when he made the mistake of correcting something in her presence, standing before a portrait of Nicholas II. “And how is it you know that, Dmitry?”

He doesn’t know. He just knows. Knows what jokes the last Tsar had enjoyed, knows how the Empress took her tea, knows Tatiana enjoyed nursing more than Olga, knows which guards Maria would blush bright red at, knows which passageways Anastasia used to reach the servants quarters.

Work is where he picked all of it up, surely. Never mind that he’s never been in the Catherine Palace to know any of these details or even as much as googled the last Imperial family.

He just _knows_.

Vlad shakes his head when Dmitry finally reaches the staff room, presenting him with the punishment of being a tour guide on the second floor of the main complex for the day. He sighs - it’s going to be a very long shift.

The second floor isn’t his favourite place. Dunya’s usually the one up here, but she’s on vacation with Polly. Marfa should probably be covering, but Dmitry’s irritated Vlad enough for it to have landed on him.

Twenty minutes before the tour arrives, he steps into the Romanov Portrait gallery, anxiety twisting in his chest. Why this area freaks him out so much, he doesn’t know. Which seems to be every second excuse out of his mouth. He just needs to brush up on his history before he has to shepherd about twenty people around it.

Given how early it still is, Dmitry’s surprised to see someone else is already peering at the paintings - or perhaps peering is the wrong word, given the short strawberry blonde woman appears to be _scowling_ at the portrait of a man.

A second too late, Dmitry realises he’s staring, and before he can cringe at how much of a creep he must look like, the woman is staring back at him.

All the air in Dmitry’s lungs evaporates, seeing those clear blue eyes widen. It’s the expression on her face, discomfort to shock to blinking confusion, that makes him open his mouth without thinking.

“Sorry, this is-” he catches himself, head spinning as if he’s walking through a dream. “Have we - do I know you?”

_Nice one, Sudayev._

She blinks hastily at him, the open book with a French title he hadn’t noticed clutched to her chest. “If that’s your best pickup line,” she tells him, guarded, “you’ve fallen at the first hurdle.”

Okay, he deserves that. But her voice makes his spine straighten, as if it’s a habit ingrained in his bones. “Sorry,” he says lamely, still searching her face. “It’s just - I’ll leave you -”

“Wait.” Her hand moves as if to take his arm, blinking a dazzled look from her eyes. “Do you work here?” She zones in on his name tag. “Dmitry?”

His name in her mouth is like being woken up from a centuries long sleep. Skin buzzing, Dmitry shoves his hands in his pocket before she can see them shaking. “I do,” he confirms. “Can I - help you, miss…”

“Anya.” She pauses. “Anastasia.”

_The world doesn’t get to keep you._

He can’t tell if Anya’s mind is whirring at the same rate as his, if she’s seeing the same impossible images he is, because she’s gesturing at the portrait of - Mikhail Feodorovich, according to the little plaque beside him. “Do you know anything about him?” She’s asking him.

“Um,” Dmitry begins eloquently. “He - founded the Romanov Dynasty?”

Judging by the way Anya snaps her book shut, that’s the incorrect answer. He’s doing great at his own job today.

“He did no such thing,” she says curtly, as if he’s insulted her family. If he were a rational man with any sense, Dmitry would back away from the look in Anya’s eyes, but someone else has taken over his body. Someone who knows how to verbally spar with Anya, apparently.

“Oh?” He presses. “Then what did he do?”

Anya bristles, and he can tell she’s enjoying this. “Did you know,” she begins. “That the Romanov dynasty started and ended with an Anastasia?”

Dmitry cocks his head. “No, I didn’t. Tell me.”

“Well,” Anya clears her throat, eyes shining at sharing this information. “Ivan the Terrible’s first wife was Anastasia Romanovna, and as you can probably tell by his name, he wouldn’t turn the greatest of people.”

“No kidding.” He _has_ heard this before, he suddenly remembers. But not from Anya. At least - not this version of her.

(Library books pressed into his back, the youngest Grand Duchess bent beside him, fingertip following the heavy volume across their laps. “See?” She’s whispering, strawberry blonde hair getting caught in his mouth. “She was the first of all of us.”

Her hands shake with the excitement of it, as if it’s a secret just for her from across the ages.)

“But - he wasn’t the Terrible while they were married. From what I’ve read of her, she was wonderful.” Anya’s voice almost sounds dreamy. “To her people, her friends, her husband. Apparently the thirteen years she was Tsarina were the calmest of Ivan’s reign. He went mad after she died, murdering and torturing. Even killed his own son.”

Dmitry arches an eyebrow. “Is this supposed to be a sad story?”

“I’m _getting_ there,” she halts him impatiently.

(That never changes, in any lifetime.)

“Anyway, their eldest son was technically Tsar after Ivan but his uncle did most of the work, and then he died childless,” Anya rambles, lost in her tale. “Which started the whole Troubles thing for fifteen years. Then the delegates find Xenia Shestova hiding in a Church as a Nun with her son, Mikhail Romanov, the great-nephew of Anastasia Romanovna, and declare him Tsar of all Russia on the spot.” She presents the information to him proudly, like she’s proved something.

Still, he can’t help winding her up. “So, Mikhail did start the dynasty.”

“But there wouldn’t have _been_ a dynasty without the first Anastasia, though. She was the _link_ ,” she argues, eyes fixed on the painting of Mikhail. “Fascinating, don’t you think?”

It is. “And yet she doesn’t even have a painting in here,” he observes, glancing between Mikhail and Feodor’s portraits.

A smile hints at Anya’s mouth. “Perhaps I should put a request in.”

It startles a laugh from him. “Ah, that’s why I’ve been propositioned.”

“Maybe not the only reason,” Anya laughs, only for her face to drop and flush.

He knew her. Knew her sly humour and double-speak and the part of herself she never showed anyone. The part of her he didn’t want to live without.

Anya is staring at him as if seeing him for the first time during their entire conversation.

“We have met before, haven’t we?” She says quietly, voice wavering. “It’s like - your _face_ -” she steps forward.

An ache thumps in Dmitry’s head, a wall crumbling down. “I know you,” he tells her urgently. “I can _see_ you in -” he stops himself, because he still can’t quite accept that they’re _memories_.

“It doesn’t make sense, I’m not -” Anya swallows. “I can’t be her. She died.”

“So did I,” he blurts before he can even think to stop himself.

Her eyes are huge. “What?”

“After -” the memories are choking him. “I didn’t make it out. The Red’s caught me. They -”

A bullet, right through his head. Dead before he hit the ground.

“Dima.” Her fingers slide in between his shaking ones, a bridge between their souls.

When he kisses her, Fate sighs.

(This time, they live.)


End file.
